Oracle launches first AI Center of Excellence in Southeast Asia

Located in Singapore, the AI Center of Excellence will serve as a resource and hub for innovation and collaboration between ecosystem partners and customers.

Oracle has launched its first AI Centre of Excellence (CoE) in the Southeast Asian region. Located in Singapore, the AI CoE aims to help organizations keep pace with the rapid advancements in AI by serving as a resource and hub for innovation and collaboration.

With AI investments in the region continuing to soar, the AI CoE will enable leaders at the forefront of AI to come together and drive AI adoption and success across Southeast Asia.

"The Oracle AI Centre of Excellence will empower individuals and organizations of all sizes across Southeast Asia with cutting-edge cloud and AI technologies, world-class training, and a dynamic environment for experimentation and innovation. It further strengthens our commitment to train thousands of students and professionals in Singapore and provide readily available digital talent for the local workforce,” commented Garrett Ilg, executive vice president, Oracle, Japan & Asia Pacific.

The Oracle AI CoE builds on Oracle's extensive history of supporting governments and enterprises in Southeast Asia. Established as part of the Oracle Solution Center, the Oracle AI CoE offers both a digital and physical environment, equipped with the latest cloud and AI technologies.

Enabling partners and customers in the region

A dedicated team of Oracle experts will work with a diverse network of partners to help organizations train teams, experiment in secure cloud environments, and provide the knowledge needed to transform critical business operations.

This includes providing training sessions and and certifications on the latest cloud and AI technologies, led by Oracle University and ecosystem partners. NTUC LearningHub will utilize the CoE and Oracle University to support the digital upskilling of local enterprises in the latest cloud and AI technologies.

Apart from that, the AI CoE will also enable organizations to test early-stage AI innovations in secure cloud environments to address their biggest business challenges. This includes conducting proof-of-concept projects and laying the foundation for full-scale implementation by allowing them to pilot AI initiatives to test the feasibility and potential benefits, an area which leading tech service company NCS is hoping to achieve.

Other ecosystem partners include GSIs like Accenture, who will leverage Oracle technology and industry expertise to help Southeast Asia healthcare and public sector organizations prototype and scale solutions in a sovereign AI cloud environment to enhance compliance, strengthen data security, and drive AI-powered innovation.

Besides Accenture, Deloitte that will focus on the financial services and consumer industries while PwC hopes to leverage to CoE and Oracle Cloud to improve decision-making, reduce costs, and accelerate business growth through AI use cases and proof-of-concept in manufacturing and supply chain in the region.

Meanwhile, in defense and engineering, ST Engineering will implement AI-based solutions for Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) systems to secure and enhance operational effectiveness and efficiency, as well as introduce comprehensive measures to safeguard AI systems and ensure their security, privacy and resilience against malicious cyber threats.

Oracle Database@Azure availability in Southeast Asia

Oracle customers in Southeast Asia will also now have access to Oracle Database@Azure. Debuting in the Southeast Asian region with Microsoft Azure, customers can gain all the performance, resiliency, security, scale, and workload availability advantages of Oracle Database on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) combined with Azure’s enterprise-grade solutions for AI, analytics, security, and applications to unlock innovation and agility.

With the availability in Southeast Asia, customers can deploy their Oracle Database services alongside Azure services natively from the same physical datacenters, including support for Oracle Exadata Database Service and Oracle Autonomous Database, both running Real Application Clusters on Oracle Exadata.

“With the launch of Oracle Database@Azure in Southeast Asia, we are excited to bring the benefits of AI and multi-cloud deployments to our mutual customers in the region,” commented Chin Ying Loong, regional managing director, ASEAN & SAGE, Oracle.

For Lee Hui Li, Managing Director, Microsoft Singapore, by leveraging Oracle Database@Azure, Microsoft customers can now access the latest AI innovations and multi-cloud capabilities to drive operational efficiencies.

“Expanding our collaboration with Oracle in Singapore underscores our joint commitment to deliver best-in-class solutions and support organizations in Southeast Asia as they migrate their workloads to a globally scalable cloud infrastructure,” said Lee.

With growing global demand, both Oracle and Microsoft continue to make Oracle Database@Azure available in more regions across the world and add new services. Oracle Database@Azure is now available in 13 regions, with 19 more planned.